Earlier this summer, we investigated the “dry spell” for new novels on the bestseller list in 2016. What did the lack of a blockbuster novel mean, if anything? Was it an anomalous blip?
We asked several industry insiders for their insights (and looked up Nielsen figures), and now it’s possible to review the big-picture financials reported by four of the Big Five during the first half of 2016—compared to the prior year—as noted by Michael Cader at Publishers Lunch (subscription required):
- Penguin Random House (PRH): sales down 10.7 percent
- Hachette Book Group USA: sales down 6.6 percent
- HarperCollins: sales down 2.5 percent
- Simon & Schuster: sales down 3.5 percent
So what contributed to the declines? Cader summarized: for PRH, according to the CEO, the shortfall was related to “the absence of newly published megasellers,” as well as the expected poor performance of ebooks in the United States and UK. Helping make up for the losses: steady print book sales and audiobook sales.
When considering the latest financial results, Cader said the declines have happened “despite persistent strength in the US dollar” and despite rising print unit sales—up 5.7 percent this year according to Nielsen BookScan. He also commented, “Because of their size, the decline at Penguin Random House is far bigger than all of the other fluctuations in aggregate.”
Bottom line: For now, we’d like to give the last word to industry consultant Mike Shatzkin, who, when considering the latest financial reports, analyzed the current ebook pricing strategy of traditional publishers. He writes, “Higher ebook prices reduce the speed with which a book can catch on in the marketplace. It feels like there is a consensus in the big houses now that it is harder to create the ‘surprise’ breakouts.… The Girl on the Train phenomenon is always unpredictable, but big publishers still could count on it coming along often enough to keep the sales revenue trend line rising. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.
“High ebook prices—and high means ‘high relative to lots of other ebooks available in the market’—will only work with the consumer when the book is ‘highly branded,’ meaning already a bestseller or by an author that is well known. And word-of-mouth, the mysterious phenomenon that every publisher counts on to make books big, is lubricated by low prices and seriously handicapped by high prices.” Read Shatzkin’s full post.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
